Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Google Code just release the API console. It better organizes Google’s APIs and I even discovered a couple new APIs.

Right now (more are expected soon) it provides:

Buzz API - Google Buzz provides developers with a powerful set of API endpoints for searching, reading, and updating post content and metadata.

Custom Search API - Google Custom Search enables you to search over a slice of the web, such as your own website, or a collection of websites. You can harness the power of Google to create a search engine tailored to your needs and interests, and you can present the results in your website.

Diacritize API - With the Diacritize API, you can add missing diacritics to the text of certain languages (currently only Arabic).

Feed API v2 with Push - The Google Feed API v2 with Push is a JavaScript library that allows you to embed Google Feeds with feed updates pushed automatically to the user's browser.

Latitude API – The Google Latitude API lets websites and programs integrate with Google Latitude, enabling users to update and read their current location, their location history, and more!

Moderator API – The Google Moderator API lets websites and programs integrate with Google Moderator, a tool for collecting ideas, questions, and recommendations from audiences of any size.

Prediction API – The Prediction API enables you to make smart applications that respond to all the streams of data that flood through your apps by providing quick and easy access to Google's powerful machine learning algorithms.

You login with your Google Account and can track exactly how you use each API, and you can get stats on API usage for your app or site, such as specific rate limits, which pages are making the most API calls and graphs of API usage over time.

Monday, November 1, 2010

I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. We had several emails back and forth where he provided basic details on the concept. And I tried to evaluate the idea and figure out:

Understand where they were in terms of being able to pay or was this equity-only (sweat equity only).

I thought it was a pretty reasonable dialog with this founder and we quickly arrived at some answers. He had a partially built product. He needed some kind of CTO and as well Developers. And he was still in the process of raising additional capital, so it was equity only. However, when I told him that the level of engagement (number of hours) required from me and the fact that equity-only development was required that I couldn't take the engagement, he seemed to be a bit offended. The very last email I got from him told me the following:

Thank you for your time Tony, I understand everyone wants a huge salary, no risk and a cut of the profits.

For some reason there’s a stigma around cash vs. equity conversation and it seems to offend some founders that people have limits for what they will do on an equity-only basis.

I would think that if you are trying to attract people on an equity-only basis you wouldn’t want to get too far into the conversation without raising the issue. Otherwise, you’ll end up spending time with people who are not going to be interested. And I personally thought the reaction above about me seemingly wanting a huge salary, no risk and a cut at the profits sounds a bit over the top when all I said is that the level of commitment would mean that I would need some cash compensation.

There are cases where I will do equity-only deals. Normally it’s when I’m in an advisory role – a few hours per month. In a few cases it’s where I’m a co-founder of the business. For me to do either of these, I certainly need to really believe in the idea and it has to be something that won’t consume all of my time. And let’s be honest, most employees, advisors, etc. who start with small equity percentages don’t end up making very much from startups. Likely the effective hourly rate as an equity-only CTO Advisor is pretty low.

Once things get into more significant time commitments, i.e., a part-time CTO role, I need to work on some combination of cash and equity. And certainly, if you are looking for Development, you can theoretically find equity-only developers and get things done, but that won’t be me trying to do that. Consider what Ryan Waggoner tells us How to Find a Technical Cofounder:

When I was doing freelance development, I had about one pitch per week for an equity-only opportunity. I fell for a couple, learned my lesson, but now I never accept these kinds of deals, even though a lot of the ideas and even teams seem solid. There are usually several reasons, but mostly it comes down to them not offering enough equity. These “startups” are almost always mostly-non-technical founders offering 1-2% premoney for a “lead developer” position. In my view, the very fact that they feel that the technical development of a web startup is only worth a couple percent speaks volumes.

That’s a pretty common experience. Unless you are a co-founder of the startup, a developer is probably not going to do all that well working on sweat equity alone. For me, that means that I would be burning bridges and losing relationships with developers that I brought on that way. Of course, if you are a good developer looking for equity-only positions in very interesting startups, please drop me a note. Bottom line, if there’s significant development, you need capital or a founder needs to go source the equity-only developers.
I would caution any founder that finding and being successful with equity-only developers is tough. It can be done, but it’s hard. Here are a few perspectives on it:

You simply need to network. Go to user groups. Go to tech (or other relevant industry) events. Refine your elevator pitch. Eventually you'll catch the ear, the vision, of someone who would like to jump on board, and has something you need in return.

While finding a developer to work for sweat equity is an option, I’d assert that you’d be better served by hunting for a technical co-founder that is passionate about creating the company you envision. In my experience, it’s naive to think you can just “get developers to build the product” although it does sometimes work. Most of the great software startups that I’ve been involved in have at least one technical co-founder (and many have more than one.)

Another option is sweat equity. It is important to realize that most people who are willing to work for sweat equity are not a) the best, b) in demand, and c) going to put their heart and soul into your project. Motivation to work for sweat equity is something else that founders tend to take for granted. Sweat equity is usually best applied in the case where you are working with someone you know who already trusts you and who you know will put up a solid effort. Sweat equity is also applicable for someone who is very interested in the subject that you are working on. What sweat equity is not good for is for people who you don’t know at all. You should avoid spending your time here and instead focus on finding a way to generate revenue or to attract investors so that you can afford to hire someone.

Engineers are humans, we have bills to pay, families to take care of, friends that we want to spend time with, and on occasion indulge in the latest tech gadget. Contrary to the way we carry ourselves we’re not robots (although I do enjoy being called a machine - but I’m not Summer Glau). So before you ask someone to even spend an hour of their time writing code or reviewing specs make sure you can pay them in some form (coffee, dinner, laptop, etc.), and if you can’t then you better start thinking of ways to raise enough funds to be able to pay them something. Don’t expect someone to work for nothing endlessly.

Bottom line: I’m willing to have a conversation with most any founder, just don’t get offended when I suggest that capital is required for me to be involved.

About Me

Dr. Tony Karrer works as a part-time CTO for startups and midsize software companies - helping them get product out the door and turn around technology issues. He is considered one of the top technologists in eLearning and is known for working with numerous startups including being the original CTO for eHarmony for its first four years. Dr. Karrer taught Computer Science for eleven years. He has also worked on projects for many Fortune 500 companies including Credit
Suisse, Royal Bank of Canada, Citibank, Lexus, Microsoft, Nissan,
Universal, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Fidelity
Investments, Symbol Technologies and SHL Systemhouse. Dr. Karrer was
valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University
of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30
engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer
Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events.